In the past I never payed much attention to Gothic aspects in literature since it didn’t interest me nor did I care for it. Not having read much Gothic literature I read ‘The Castle of Otranto’ with an open mind. At first it was hard for me to keep track in the book since I wasn’t a big fan of it but the ideas and Gothic aspects kept me interested enough to see what else it has to offer. As a “first” Gothic Literature piece for me I wanted to be able to enjoy how the book contributed to literacy.
The Gothic elements the book contained ranged from madness to supernatural. There was a variety of Gothic elements to pick from and all of them gave chilling thoughts and made you wonder why it was happening. Such as Manfred losing his son and becoming crazy to not lose his name in power. Also when the servants see ghost walking around the castle, it seemed random for it to happen but it just added to the mystery.
In this book, I could see how future authors used this book as a template for their Gothic elements in their writings. Since this is considered the first Gothic novel I find it interesting that it was able to contribute to a lot of writings up to this day because it was a short book. Overall it was hard for me to finish the book but I enjoyed trying to find all the Gothic elements in it.
I agree with this statement because at first I had a really hard time with this book as im not familiar with the gothic genre. But I did keep an open mind while reading it because the idea that you may read something that can give a scare is always thrilling. Even though I dislike the book the gothic elements present in it kept me reading, all the way through.
I agree with you, neither did I pay much attention to Gothic Literature. I thought it was just a weird thing that people like to read, until I read Castle of Otranto. Well, it was an interesting book, didn’t like it so much. I like the gothic elements, made me want to read more. For reading the first Gothic literature, Im happy to see what other gothic books would be like, off course a bit different and more exciting to read. I honestly think a lot of authors read Castle of Otranto and put their own ideas in their stories which made Gothic stay alive till this century.